Atlantis Lands Safely

Space shuttle Atlantis with seven astronauts including the “made famous by Indian media” Sunita Williams landed safely at the Edwards Air Force Base, California today 0119 hrs (IST).

Well I don’t have a problem per say with Sunita Williams. She has reached some amazing milestones including the honours for longest stay in Space. My problem is with the fact that media claims her to be an Indian, and then running SMS campaigns for her safe landing. What about the other six on board, aren’t they also entitled to our good wishes. The bigger problem is when they claim her to be India’s daughter, when her nationality is American and also her birth place being Euclid, Ohio, USA. So can somebody explain how a person born and brought up in America with an American Passport be an Indian Property. Another thing being her father stating that “Sunita is India’s Daughter.” I just have one thing to say, how can a person who ditched his Indian passport in favour of an American Passport, dedicate his American daughter to India.

When will our media stop claiming people who are not Indians to be Indians and concentrate on much more important stuff. People like Bobby Jindal, Sunita Williams, Kalpana Chawla all have some ancestral roots to India and nothing else. What have they given to the Indian society other than confirming the facts that you won’t make it big in India, go abroad.

People like Lakshmi N. Mittal are much better who at least haven’t given up their Indian Nationality (its a different fact that he enjoys huge tax benefits under UK’s domicile tax policy).

I hope our media stops giving such people useless attention, and give me news that actually makes a difference to my life.

3 Replies to “Atlantis Lands Safely”

Mohd. this is one that I am totally in agreement with.. The fact is that the stupid news channels hardly get any crap to talk about.. So they find the next piece of news on the floor and make a story out of it.. SMS campaigns my foot. they simply make a quick buck or rather bucks from unsuspecting idiots sending in their wishes..

i completely agree with you. i was about to write exactly the same thing on my blog, but you’ve put it way better. why only sunita williams? what about the other six? haven’t they gone through exactly the same things? as far as kalpana chawla is concerned at least she completed a part of her education in india. don’t get me wrong. I’m very happy that all of them reached terra firma safe and sound and they are doing some great research work. we should all be proud of such people. what i’m saying is be proud of ALL of them. give equal media coverage to all the astronauts instead of focussing on just one because as far as regionalism or anything of that sort is concerned, none of them are indians.

the media really needs to show the facts, the actual news, instead of focussing on what they think the people want to see.

as far as the sms campaigns are concerned, pray tell me how people sms-ing is going to help a bunch of scientists trapped in a space shuttle in space? it’s all about the money.